The invention relates to a glove holder unit for a confinement enclosure, better known under the name glove box.
A confinement enclosure is a chamber having tight, rigid walls and generally having a transparent glass plate making it possible to see from the outside into the enclosure. The enclosure is provided with several orifices in each of which is fixed a glove. Technicians using this confinement enclosure make use of these gloves in order to work within the enclosure and for manipulating various toxic or radioactive products. Consequently, it is essential that such enclosures are tight in order to prevent any pollution to the outside. Once the gloves have become worn, they have to be replaced while still maintaining the seal of the enclosure.
The conventionally used gloves are in one piece and have a length of approximately 70 to 80 cm covering the hand, forearm and part of the arm of the user. These gloves and in particular the part protecting the hand very rapidly become worn and have a very limited life, because they are used in a nitric and/or a radioactive medium.
The replacement of these gloves creates a significant quantity of waste. For illustration only, knowing that a glove has a total weight of approximately 250 g and that on average 500 gloves are used every year in a production unit, there is a waste weight of approximately 125 kg.
In addition, it is expensive to replace these gloves, because it is necessary to change the entire glove, whereas only the end part protecting the hand is generally damaged or worn.
Moreover, it would be of interest to use gloves in two parts, with a first part protecting the arm and a second part only protecting the hand. The second part could be made from different materials and have a thickness, a strength, a shape and dimensions differing as a function of the applications or users for which it is intended. Thus, the user could work with hand protecting gloves of extreme thinness, like the gloves used by surgeons for precise and difficult handling operations, while using thick gloves for manipulations requiring a special protection, but where no adroitness is required. At present this is difficult to put into practice, because it is often necessary to replace the entire glove.
In order to solve the problem of waste and the replacement of worn gloves, U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,609 discloses a glove holder unit comprising a sleeve for protecting the arm and the forearm, which is equipped with bellows and a hand protecting glove, said glove being fitted to the protective sleeve by detachable fixing means. Each detachable glove is fixed to a glove ring or disk cooperating with a ring provided at the end of the bellows-equipped protective sleeve. During the changing of the hand protecting glove, it is necessary to use a special tool for unlocking and separating the glove disk from the end of the bellows-equipped sleeve, in order to introduce a replacement glove also having a glove disk. This device is complex to use and as a result of the need of employing glove disks, the quantity of waste is increased. Moreover, the bellows-equipped sleeve is rigid and limits the movements of the user's arm and forearm.
The invention therefore aims at obviating the aforementioned disadvantages.